The Jester's Game
by MessengerOfDreams
Summary: The defeated soldier puts an end to the ersatz prince's game on which a stolen kingdom hinges. For LadyPaprika's OOC Contest.


**I've decided I'm not going to spend a month shoehorning one of my biggest concepts into a 20k work for the sake of a contest. So I took some situations that I, as an activist, have been in, I've heightened all the stakes and I've mused on some of my observations and how they play on some anger that I've harbored, and this is what I came up with.**

**This is for LadyPaprika's Out-of-Character contest. I'll elaborate on that more as I get there.**

**A/N: Disclaimer: I own nothing, regret nothing and let them forget nothing.**

**After you.**

Let's play a game.

It's the same one you always play. You play the hero. Oh yes, the so-called hero, and what a hero he is. A hero so dashing, with his azure hair just barely shrouding those gorgeous eyes and slim face so readily made for artwork and history books. A hero dressed in the black cape of a warrior, his tunic and pants finely crafted by only the best of tailors. A hero who speaks in a voice that commands so much authority and awe, with words once so eloquent that you'd think a master scribe was writing every word for him.

You may be a hero, but you are nothing more than the damned hero of a damned nation.

This hero is such a fine character, so beloved and revered, but at the end, he is just a character, a caricature of what we all wish we could be, all that we wish we had. You have become little more than a fraud who has fooled himself into relevance, and I hate you for it.

Play the part again. Cry aloud your declarations outside of the castle gates. Demand back what is rightfully yours as we stand behind you, all of our hope drained. We have waited for three years, a wandering tribe within our home, for progress to be made, and you have made none. You tried your demands when he first took your kingdom, and they were met by deaf, ignorant ears. No matter how many times you try it, you will not get it back that way.

Oh, my prince, your majesty, what a fool you are. You fancy yourself such a majestic figure, the prince of Altea, yet you are little more than Altea's jester. You are a jester, delivering twisted, dark comedy to your enemies through your petulance and delusion. Ganondorf has made you his entertaining fool, and you have not a single idea of who you truly are.

I wanted to be home so badly, the home my child was born in, the home my family once lived, the home we enjoyed the fact that we were whole with the rest of our lives ahead of us. I used to think they were still alive. Now I know that there's no hope left for them. There's no hope for any of us.

But that's okay. History will remember us!

Isn't that what you always say? History will remember us, the remnants of a stolen kingdom fighting back to regain what is rightfully theirs. But isn't all fair in love and war? Of course, that is a trick question- this is no war. My sword hasn't left my sheath since we were forced to retreat, nor have my arrows left my quiver. I haven't fought in so long sometimes I forget that there is no peace, joy or rest to be found in my life.

I am nowhere. I am no one. I am nameless, faceless, hopeless. History will think as little of me as it would the ink that will write your story, leaving it adorned with the blackened blood of all the battles that never were.

History will not remember us. History will remember you. Don't try and play it any different. You're going through great lengths to make sure your story is told. But I couldn't give any less of a damn if my story is told in any history books. None of us could. We just want to go home.

I used to admire you, oh my prince, when you were genuine and real, when you always worked for your people. Very few countries had princes like you. Many countries would steal from their people with little regard for their safety because they had everything, much like the man who has imprisoned many of those we used to love and infected our streets with his own miserable bastard children and people.

You were different. You were an idealist, just as I was. You would say that you were fascinated by the power that you had over a kingdom of people, but you desired to create an amazing world within your walls that everyone could be happy in. We were so happy, and I never realized how good we had it until it was gone. Sometimes the enemy is just more powerful than us, no matter how miserable and bastardly they are.

I was just a citizen, and you were my ruler. You led the armies of your own kingdom, of which I was just a soldier, armed with my sword, my bow and arrow, and courage so blinding that it was almost insane. You did not know me, but you trusted me. When Altea was stolen, you stood by me. You stood by all of us, and you were my hero, the true prince of Altea.

When you said you were going to take it back, I believed you. I believed you from the first moment you said it. I believed it when you first spoke against the new, wicked king. I believed it when you told us to ready our swords, because we were either going to reclaim Altea or we were going to die trying. I was ready to die trying. We all were. How did you not notice us? How have you not taken advantage of this?

I believed you the first time you started this listless cycle. I believed you the second, third and fourth times. I believed you more times than I have the humility to admit, but I cannot believe you any longer. You've exhausted my faith, you've exhausted my body, and you've exhausted my soul. Your true colors have become so overwhelming that they've turned me gray.

I used to think "What if we could?" Damn my optimism for making me ask, "What if we could do it? We the underdogs against the villainous majority who have stolen our land from under us for no other reason that they could? What if we could fight against the greed and tyranny of Ganondorf, and even win? What if we could go home? What if I could see my wife and children again, alive and unharmed? What if I could come back to life?"

I don't have the capacity to hope any longer. I don't have the capacity to care. My bravery has been consumed by your cowardice.

I am detached as I hear you speak as you always have. Your message has gotten more controlling than it used to be, and it inspires nothing but weariness in place of the excitement it once did. Your passion has boiled over into hate, your wisdom consumed by folly, your humility forgotten in place of ego far worse than any of our enemies. My bravery has been consumed by your cowardice.

What once was "We are a team, we are Altea, we are united!" has become "Anyone who strays from their brethren or loses faith in Altea is as traitorous as the king living inside our walls!"

What once was "We can do this!" has become "We must do this!"

What once was "We must respect our enemy if we are to conquer them!" has become "Those Gerudo bastards couldn't notice a sword coming at their face until they had tasted their own blood!"

Our whole campaign has become a long list of what once was and what can never be.

You've changed too. You used to acknowledge that we all had reasons to fight, not just you. Now we are nearly the procession in your funeral marches as you decry and mourn that blasted what once was and what can never be. Once, we were all acknowledged as people, not just the living props that we have become. You would talk to us, but unlike now, you would listen to us respond. You wanted to know how we were doing, if we had the courage to fight, and why we fought. You made sure we had courage in our hearts and the desire to fight. Now you string us along on a rope as you carry on, dragging us along the dirt as we haven't even the heart to resist.

It used to be us against them. Now it's you against the world.

You mock our enemy to their face, but have you not noticed how lackadaisical they are to us? They used to block the gates, lining the walls with guards, archers and cannons full of hot melted metal that they would burn us alive with. Now there is no one along the walls, and when we enter the gates no one makes much note of us. The Gerudo Thieves simply roll their eyes and laugh as they see us. The guards in the King Thief's own castle have not even taken their posts today.

I should know.

I've waited for too long. I've seen you change into something that I despise. The old Prince Marth of Altea is gone, and he has left with us the caricature of a vain, spineless prince who believes everything is owed to him. With what little emotion I have left in me, whatever resemblance of a human heart that hasn't been destroyed, with that last drop of passion I have left, I despise you. You have murdered yourself in front of our eyes in a slow, twisted game of repetitive cycles that tortures us more than the hot metal that once burned the skin of our brethren.

I've played this game for too long.

I was courageous, yes, but I was rash. When we were driven out, I reacted more than I would take my own action. To have you as a leader was once the best thing that could have happened to me. I looked up to you as though you were my god. When you spoke, I believed it. For a moment, I felt at ease, knowing what I had lost and feeling that we had the ability to regain it. But time can break away everything you once knew. Altea has lost everything, trading its prosperity for consumption, its nobility for dishonesty and its prince for a jester. This jester's game of absurdity and repetition has rusted this knight, turned him from a man with so much life and so much to live for to a listless soul who has no reason to care.

I don't even care about going home anymore. I know that my wife is dead, my children scattered to the wind and broken beyond even their father's repair. I know that Altea is in a state that will take too long to restore in my lifetime, if it is even within our grasp. I know that the Gerudos have everything, and I have nothing. I don't care about anything anymore, including myself.

It is that lack of care and the accompanying selflessness that gives back to me the courage you lost.

I slip through the hallways of the castle that used to be yours. In any other world the sheer majesty of the pillars and the intricate paintings along the walls and ceilings would give me pause to reflect on the beauty of it all. There have been so many generations who, once upon a time, were able to trace their lineage and the history of the kingdom in paintings along these walls. Now, it is only my set piece, just as the filthy streets have become yours. I scale up the stairs to the throne room, in the tallest tower of your castle.

This is my game now. This is my show. It's my turn.

I can still hear you shouting from outside the walls even as I creep from within them. I hear the same phrases and colloquialisms you've patented against the king, the names you call them, the haughtiness and cockiness that you taunt your oppressor with. As faint as they may be, I could recite them from memory.

Go ahead, keep screaming. It's not your show anymore. It doesn't matter what you say.

I'm in charge now.

I can see the back of the king's head as he peers from the towers at you in amusement, a little fly in his ointment, unaware of his fate tiptoeing behind him. He faces your weapon of insults and words. My weapon of choice is a bow and arrow.

It's my time to act.

I ready the shot. I'm not even nervous because I know exactly how this will end. I'll shoot my arrow clean through the Bastard King Ganondorf's head, and he'll fall from the towers directly before you. Your face will turn as white as paper as you suddenly realize that something else is in control. Maybe you'll compose yourself and decree victory on behalf of you and your army as the realization sets in that King Ganondorf is dead. You'll try and pass this as a tribute to your glory and the glory of Altea, that baseless god you've turned our broken nation into.

And while you're celebrating, I'll stand in the tower and shoot an arrow directly into your pretty little face and end this game once and for all, staining the pages of future history books with your blood, the ink turned red.

"Long live Altea," I can already imagine myself shouting afterwards before I let them return the favor I gave to their ruler. Long live Altea, because neither of us are going to.

Today will end with three people heading to the grave, because we were all doomed to die anyways. I was never afraid of it. As a soldier, you can't be afraid to lose your life for a greater cause, damn jingoism, glory or history books. It's a shame that it took a simple soldier to remember what the jester prince could not.

**A/N Well there you have it. Of course I'm not going to actually murder people or anything of the sort, but I've been in situations where I've realized I'm on the right side with the wrong crowd, people who are more concerned with creating an outrageous image than with actually creating solutions to make our cause happen. These are situations I've had to break away from, and I'm better for it.**

**As far as OOC goes, the main character is Link, once lively and teeming with bravado and courage, but became so worn down that it sucked the life out of him to the point that he resorted to murder as his only action, regaining a dry sort of bravery in the process. As for Marth, he was once a kind, just and strong ruler who turned vain and sour while trying to boost his image and force his story to be told, which made him weak. Hopefully this passes.**

**Thanks for reading this piece. Wish me luck!**

**~MoD**


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